July 8, 2001

5:38 PM

ASFRecorderPull those streams right off of the Internet in Windows Media Format. Songs that are streamed form band websites where there are no singles or the new album yet, just grab it down.
posted by benjh (19 comments total)

certainly puts file swapping in perspective when you can pull a full copy of the latest song right off the band's web site. While I personally buy CDs and such, sometimes bands put out new songs on the radion, don't have the new album out yet, and no single.
posted by benjh at 5:41 PM on July 8, 2001

I've been looking for something life this for a while. It'll be nice to be able to listen to streaming audio broadcasts on my mp3 player. Thanks, Benjh.
posted by Doug at 6:18 PM on July 8, 2001

I've been using this app for a few weeks, and it works like a charm... I believe there are a few similar progs out there for ripping RealMedia streams as well.
posted by Neb at 10:40 PM on July 8, 2001

Oooh...I wanna rip RealMedia. Anybody got a linkie?
posted by frykitty at 10:46 PM on July 8, 2001

"Why is this possible?
It is possible because content providers seem not to be worried about the safety and copy-protection of their content. They trust in a proprietary streaming protocol invented by Microsoft and they completely ignore the need for activating any security options that this protocol does indeed offer."

heheh.
posted by Espoo2 at 10:48 PM on July 8, 2001

There was an earlier version of Matchbox, I believe, that would convert realaudio to .wav or .mp3. Good luck on finding it. I once found a program that would do this, downloaded it onto a specific machine in our lab, then promptly forgot what it was called. It's the grail!

I have a user here whose deceased father was a singer. Over 100 of his songs are on a Quebec website in RA, and the plan was to burn him a CD.
posted by mecran01 at 4:47 AM on July 9, 2001

http://streamboxripper.cjb.net/

Thank you google.
posted by mecran01 at 4:55 AM on July 9, 2001

Heh. Good luck. It only works for really old realmedia content, and even when it works, the quality is horrid.
posted by jragon at 6:13 AM on July 9, 2001

TotalRecorder captures any sound, on-the-fly conversion to WAV, MP3, etc. 12 bucks American. FAQ here.
posted by luser at 7:20 AM on July 9, 2001

I've been using TotalRecorder for a while to record streaming audio stations. Anything that is output to the computer's speakers can be recorded in MP3 format, regardless of the scheme used to produce or protect the stream. I'm not using it to capture music, so I don't know how high-quality the audio is, but it's great for talk radio.
posted by rcade at 8:11 AM on July 9, 2001

Dart Pro has a free timer/recorder. Click on the "free stuff" link. They also have restoration software for removing scratches.
posted by mecran01 at 8:13 AM on July 9, 2001

You must be using some ancient beta because I have yet to find a stream that I can't rip with Streambox though sometimes you have to help it in finding the correct URL.

As for quality, sounds great when the RealAudio is high quality, and lower quality when the RealAudio is lower.

*shrug*
posted by yupislyr at 10:23 AM on July 9, 2001

Er, are these audio only? I was rather hoping for a vid ripper.
posted by frykitty at 10:26 AM on July 9, 2001

I'll vouch for total recorder, too. I use it for everything, ripping vinyl, streamed audio, whatever. It works like a charm, doesn't take much memory.
It just takes the waveform data directly from your soundcard, so there are no quality problems.
posted by sonofsamiam at 12:20 PM on July 9, 2001

ASFRecorder works for video too... I've used it to pull videos off of Launch's web site. (they stutter a lot because of their high bandwidth demand, with this no more stutter)
posted by benjh at 4:40 PM on July 9, 2001

Ummm, has anyone ever tried looking in their browser cache? Just a hint...
posted by fooljay at 7:02 PM on July 9, 2001

The browser cache trick doesn't work for streams.
posted by kindall at 7:22 PM on July 9, 2001

on Streambox: I used it last night to convert over 50 RA streams that I had saved to my drive to mp3. The source recordings weren't that great--scratchy old vinyl recordings captured in mono, so the resulting mp3s were only 500k. But it worked. There is freeware/demo software that will remove hiss and pops, but nothing free that will do it as a batch operation that I know of.
posted by mecran01 at 4:10 AM on July 10, 2001

Well, you may be right about the Windows cache not working with streams but it's fairly easy to fashion you're own caching proxy server.

Back when MP3.com had beamit, a friend of mine and I made such a thing. One person could beam their CDs, give the password to another, who used the proxy server. The proxy server would act as a go between--permanently caching the stream and simultaneously feeding the stream to the player.

When a lot of people are using the proxy server, you suddenly find yourself with a great number of audio/video files saved.

Fun!
posted by fooljay at 10:25 AM on July 10, 2001